Mosque Is Attacked After Demolitions at Settler Outpost

Palestinians cast shadows on burned walls inside a mosque that was defaced Thursday outside the West Bank city of Ramallah.Credit
Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

A mosque in a village outside the West Bank city of Ramallah was defaced and set on fire early Thursday, the third day of extremist Jewish violence that has prompted widespread condemnation and new law enforcement steps by the Israeli government.

The attack came after the Israeli Army moved in overnight to remove two structures at an unauthorized settler outpost of six families near Nablus.

Inside the third floor of the mosque, where carpets and chairs were burned, Hebrew graffiti said “war” and “price tag,” the name given to a campaign by radical settlers angered by Israeli government policy. Other graffiti referred to the settler outpost, saying, “Regards from Mitzpe Yitzhar.”

On Tuesday, rumors that illegal outposts were to be removed prompted dozens of settlers to attack an Israeli Army base, a move that hardened the resolve of Israeli leaders to contain right-wing militants.

Israeli officials condemned the mosque attack. President Shimon Peres, meeting with settler leaders over the tensions, said such attacks were “pouring oil on the flames” of regional anger at Israel.

“What these guys are doing is very serious,” he said. “Israel has always been proud of protecting all of the holy sites. Today, when the Muslim world is where it is, to give them justification to attack Israel is a disaster, it’s crazy and it must stopped.”

One of the settler leaders, Danny Dayan, joined Mr. Peres in criticizing attacks on mosques, but put some responsibility on what he called “a trend of incitement” against Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority described the mosque burnings as “hate crimes,” and in a statement called on the international community to hold the Israeli government responsible for the attacks.

On Wednesday, reacting to the attack on the Israeli base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a set of steps to be applied to right-wing Israeli extremists. The measures include the use of detention without charge and trial through military courts.

Such methods had until now generally been restricted to treatment of Palestinian suspects. Some left-wing Israelis worried that the new steps would also be used against their activists in the West Bank. Other commentary on the new approach said the changes were insufficient because they failed to address the central issue — tolerance of the violence by rabbinic and other leaders.

Mr. Netanyahu decided not to label the Jewish extremists terrorists, which would have given still more powers to security forces.

In a separate development, the Israeli government issued a list of 550 Palestinian prisoners scheduled to be released early next week, the second part of a deal that freed Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit from more than five years of captivity in Gaza. Unlike the first group of 477, this one includes no senior militants or members of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

About 40 of the prisoners are expected to be sent to Gaza, two to Jordan, two to East Jerusalem and the rest to the West Bank, according to the Israeli Prisons Service.

An earlier version of this article misstated the day of the mosque attack. It took place on Thursday, not Wednesday.

A version of this article appears in print on December 16, 2011, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Mosque Is Attacked After Demolitions at Settler Outpost. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe